A Magus in Aincrad
by Wavelet365
Summary: Kayaba just wanted everyone to play his death game fairly. Waver just wanted to understand the gaming rig which had reduced the Heaven's Feel to mere magecraft. And Rin was only in it for the full scholarship to the Clock Tower. Unfortunately, Kayaba ended up with a cheating magus, Waver got saddled with having to rescue a student, and Rin ended up stuck inside a video game.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Heaven's Feel: a true magic, which granted its user immortality and unlimited magical energy by preventing the dispersion of the soul and its consequent return to Akasha. Lost for one thousand years, it was a miracle sought by countless magi over the centuries. Now, for most magi, that search was over.

Due to the scientific research of Kayaba Akihiko, what had been the Third True Magic had degraded to mere magecraft: while Kayaba himself had not yet reproduced the Heaven's Feel, according to some of the Magic Association's most esteemed researchers, its reproduction was now merely a matter of time and resources.

One more path to the Root had closed, and, with it, countless research projects were shelved. The Clock Tower was in chaos, as prominent magi in the faculties of necromancy, creation and curse, who had dedicated their lives to studying the Heaven's Feel, scrambled for more impressive projects. After all, the goal of any true magus was to reach the Root. Now that this was no longer possible through the use of the Heaven's Feel, it was only natural that magi would abandon research in that direction.

Indeed, only in one of the Clock Tower's twelve faculties was any magus at all pleased with this development. Of course, Lord El-Melloi II, a fourth tier magus in the Department of Modern Magecraft Theories, was hardly your average magus. For one thing, most of the time, when he was not attending to his duties as new Lord El-Melloi, he preferred to be called Waver, or Professor Velvet, if he was speaking with students. For another thing, he was inordinately fond of video games (and not merely for a magus, for whom even having heard of such things might be enough to be considered inordinately fond of them, but even when compared to the population of his home country, England, as a whole).

Occasionally, in the personal opinion of Professor Velvet's secretary, this predilection resulted in behaviour which did not befit the Lord El-Melloi. As the blonde-haired woman opened the door to his bedroom, after having been told that she could come in, she reflected that today was likely to be one of those days.

Lord El-Melloi II (although, at times like this, it was hard for her to think of him like that) was sprawled out on his bed, wearing nothing but a pair of blue boxer shorts and a white muscle shirt. Propping his upper body up with his elbows, the young man was furiously pressing various buttons and pushing assorted knobs on the controller for his Playstation 7. On the television screen, perhaps a metre in front of Lord El-Melloi II, a teenaged girl drawn in the style of an anime character was pressing a gun to her forehead and then firing it, shouting, "Persona," as she did so. Then something which looked a bit like a grim reaper appeared out of the character's body, slicing her scythe towards a giant, seven-headed hydra.

"Lord El-Melloi," she began, ignoring the familiar spectacle. "A letter has arrived for you from the Dean. I believe it concerns your research proposal."

"Mm," he replied, clearly having tuned her out. "Just a moment, Samantha. I'll be with you as soon as I reach the next save point in this labyrinth. If it follows the pattern established on the previous floors, it should be somewhere around here."

Drawing on the large reserves of patience she had acquired from two years serving this child trapped in a man's body, Samantha stood in place, holding the Dean's letter in her right hand. It was open, naturally, as Professor Velvet preferred for her to answer any correspondence from the Dean which did not directly concern his research.

"There!" the video game enthusiast cried out, apparently having spotted what he had been looking for, just as a large, black-winged bird flew onto the screen towards his avatar. Half a minute later, having soundly defeated the four bird-shaped monsters which had assailed his party, Lord El-Melloi II reached the save point he had been seeking and saved his game. Then, turning off his Playstation 7 with the push of a button, the esteemed lecturer sat up in his bed and turned towards her.

"Alright, Samantha. You said the letter was from the Dean. So, what does that old blowhard want now?"

Huh. So, apparently, he had been listening to at least some of what she had said.

"It's about your NerveGear research proposal, Lord El-Melloi. Apparently, the Dean does not feel that the benefits which would accrue to the Faculty from having you travel to Japan in order to play Sword Art Online for a year would justify losing a lecturer of your skill and experience for so long."

"Huh," he replied, apparently unconcerned. "Here, give me that," the professor continued, walking towards his secretary and then taking the letter out of her hands. "And haven't I told you to call me Waver, or at least Professor Velvet?"

The professor's eyes scanned over the letter swiftly, as he mumbled to himself.

"Hm... Yes, yes, great regret, yes, yes... Ah, there we go. Excellent. That's just what I was hoping for."

Samantha blinked, feeling puzzled.

"You're pleased that he rejected your proposal, Professor Velvet?"

"Hm? Oh, no. I'd much rather go myself, of course, but I knew that old fossil would never go for that. I only asked for so much in hopes that he'd give me what I wanted as a sort of consolation prize, and he did."

"Oh. You mean the research assistant."

"Right." He nodded. "In order to investigate the magecraft formerly known as the Third True Magic using the NerveGear, I will need someone playing Sword Art Online to conduct tests for me and collect experimental results. Of course, I'd rather do it myself, but, as I can't get away from here for that long, a research assistant will have to do. It will mean that I'll have to sponsor another student in a few years, but needs must, I suppose."

"I see. You'll want me to send out a call for applications then."

"Yes. Considering that we'll be offering sponsorship and a full scholarship to study here once the research is complete, we're likely to get at least a few talented, young, Japanese magi applying. Hopefully, by the time my decision is made, I'll have some preliminary research materials to send over to my new assistant."

"Alright. I'll get on that right away then, sir. Oh, one more thing."

"Yes?"

"Ah. It's a complaint from Mistress Reines, sir. Apparently, your maid golem has gone berserk again, and tried to strangle a Finnish friend of hers to death."

"Again?"

Professor Velvet sighed.

"Okay. Well, inform Reines that I'll take care of that right away. I assume Volumen Hydrargyrum has been restrained."

"Um, yes sir. Apparently, Lady Reines tore off its arms and legs."

The professor dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

"That's fine. It'll keep it in one place, and, once Volumen Hydrargyrum's back under control, it'll be easy enough to fix."

"Very good, sir," she replied, sweeping out of the room. "I'll take care of sending out the call for applications right away then."

Waver simply nodded.

In his mind's eye, he could see the promotional images of Castle Aincrad floating in the sky, as thousands of intrepid gamers braved its deadly labyrinths. He wished that he could be a part of that as well – a part of the game which would be the first step in replicating a miracle which, even a year ago, was beyond the grasp of human wisdom and the world – but studying Sword Art Online from afar would have to do. He'd just have to wait for the European release, if he wanted a chance to play himself.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

Professor Velvet had called it a device whose capabilities might nearly pass for sorcery. Some of the promotional materials he had sent her called it a miracle of modern technology. If her new supervisor was correct, it might be the key to unravelling both how magic degraded to mere magecraft and how one might create new magecraft to manipulate the human soul. If he was right, then studying it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

It looked like a motorcycle helmet.

Holding her brand new Nerve Gear up above her head, as she lay atop the beige sheets of the canopy bed in her room, Rin turned the dark blue helmet back and forth, as if just what was so special about the device might reveal itself if she looked at it from the right angle. Unable to see anything particularly remarkable about the device, the fifteen year-old magus spared a look at her alarm clock: 12:56 PM.

The game would begin in less than 4 minutes. Then she supposed that she would see if this Sword Art Online was really as impressive as Professor Velvet had claimed. In the end, of course, it did not really matter. Regardless of the results of Professor Velvet's research, her assistance would guarantee her a fully funded position as a student at the Clock Tower once she finished high school, as well as the highly-regarded professor's sponsorship. Even so, it would be nice if the two of them could make a ground-breaking discovery or two before she even began at the Clock Tower. Japan was considered something of a backwater among magi, so it would be useful to have a couple of results to her name which proved her worth before she arrived at the world's foremost magical research institute. It would also make her feel better about all the time she had spent preparing to play this game over the past two weeks.

Buying an internet had just been the first step. Rin had been well aware that she was not exactly the most expert person in the world when it came to using advanced technology, so she had given herself plenty of time to figure out how to set up her Nerve Gear. The instructions had been fairly complicated. It was not that they were excessively long, but that they had contained a fair amount of sophisticated, technical jargon, which had taken her a few days in her middle school's library to decipher.

_Plug the Nerve Gear into your router. In order to avoid lag, ensure that you are using a high speed internet connection. Then insert the game cartridge into the slot in your Nerve Gear. Lay down in a comfortable position, and place the Nerve Gear on your head. At this point, begin the game by saying the words "Link Start."_

It had taken a week, but in the end, Rin had managed to have the internet installed inside a satellite dish outside her house, which apparently connected to a small, grey box inside her bedroom. This box, which communicated with the satellite somehow, was the router she supposedly needed. She had also solved the mystery of the game cartridge in that time. The back of her Nerve Gear contained a small, concealed compartment in which the copy of Sword Art Online she had procured (through the simple expedient of hypnotizing a store clerk the day before it was released) could be placed.

That had left her one final week in which to familiarize herself with the general principles of quantum brain dynamics (the general theory upon which Kayaba Akihiko had based his invention) to study some materials Professor Velvet had provided on past attempts to replicate the Heaven's Feel, and to thoroughly understand a variety of esoteric mysteries which had been used in the past in order to indirectly study the interaction between the soul and magecraft. It wasn't quite what she would consider a light workload, but, compared to the week she spent desperately trying to understand how to set up her Nerve Gear, it had almost been like a vacation.

Unfortunately, Rin reflected, taking one final glance at her alarm clock – 12:59 PM – her vacation had eventually come to an end.

She was already lying down, and the fluffy, white pillow her head rested on was fairly comfortable. Untying the black ribbons which normally held her hair in twin tails was the work of another minute. Then, after shaking her long, black, wavy hair out, the fifteen year-old magus placed her Nerve Gear on her head. Even with her hair down, the helmet was a bit uncomfortable, but, compared to the familiar pain of her magic circuits (to say nothing of her crest) it was nothing.

White letters appeared on the black-tinted visor which now covered the top half of her face.

_If this is your first time using this Nerve Gear, you will need to perform a few simple exercises in order to calibrate your device. Begin calibration?_

Hm. This was a bit like her phone, except it would usually add something like, "For yes, press 1, and for no, press 2." However, there didn't seem to be any buttons she could press.

"Yes," Rin uncertainly replied out loud, not sure if the Nerve Gear could actually hear her, but also having run out of other ideas. Her eyes widened slightly when the words lighting up her visor changed in response to her reply.

_Touch your chin with your left hand._

The instruction was strange, but not too difficult to carry out.

_Remove your left hand from your chin, and touch your right knee with your right hand._

The instructions continued on in this vein for about ten minutes, directing Rin to touch herself all over her body (she had blushed the first time she considered her actions in those words, before dismissing the inappropriate thought). While she had initially been confused by the procedure, its purpose had been clear once she thought about it for a moment. The Nerve Gear worked by intercepting signals to and from the user's brain, which would normally be sent to, or received from, one's limbs. It was unsurprising that it would need to be calibrated by having her identify the nerves connecting to various parts of her body through motion.

Idly, as she completed the last of the device's instructions – _Raise your right leg into the air, and then roll your right ankle in circles counterclockwise –_ she wondered what would happen if she purposely performed the instructions incorrectly. Would the device confuse her legs and arms, for example? Was this device intelligent enough to detect such a deception? It might be worth investigating that idea later.

The calibration of her Nerve Gear finally completed, Rin settled herself into a comfortable position atop her bed again and took a deep breath.

"Link Start," she calmly declared.

In an instant, the world she had watched from behind her Nerve Gear's black-tinted visor vanished, replaced by a white void. Her senses of taste, touch, hearing and smell were gone. Even the irritating feeling of the Nerve Gear awkwardly plastering her hair to her skull was absent. Then pillars of grey, red, purple, green, blue – too many colours to keep track of – shot past her. Five blue and purple gears then rapidly appeared before her eyes in sequence, labelled in English with touch, sight, hearing, taste and smell, respectively.

Abruptly, her senses returned, or at least they seemed to return. Of course, in truth, she knew that it was just the Nerve Gear overriding her true senses, replacing them with false input provided by the artificial world it created. Everything she was experiencing now was merely an illusion, but an illusion so true to life that the unobservant might confuse it with reality.

A prompt for her to select a language appeared, and she selected Japanese. Then a second prompt for an account number and password popped up. These had been provided with her copy of Sword Art Online, and she had memorized them. For a moment, she was not sure how to enter the information, but then an illusionary keyboard appeared at her fingertips, and she began to slowly type in the required information. All that appeared as she typed in the boxes provided were asterisks, but, for whatever reason (maybe the machine was broken?) this caused no problems, the machine easily accepting the input she provided.

Then more prompts began to appear.

_Create New Character: _

_Yes_

_Name:_

_Tohsaka Rin_

_Gender:_

_Female_

A more complicated screen appeared next, containing a vast array of options which she could tweak in order to alter the appearance of a rather generic looking, brown-haired woman, who floated before her eyes. The word _Appearance_ hung in the air above the woman's head. So, what exactly was the point of this? Well, she was creating a character, so maybe the woman was supposed to be what she would look like inside the illusion. Yes. That seemed likely. The young magus sighed, as she took in the hundreds of options the game provided, from simple choices like height and hair colour, to completely unnecessary options like thumb nail thickness. This looked like it might take a while.

In the end, after nearly fifteen minutes of fiddling with the options available, Rin managed to create an illusionary body which vaguely resembled her own. She was still pretty sure that the body's legs were a bit too short, and her upper body wasn't quite proportioned correctly, but at least the hair and eye colour were right.

Rin sighed again, already a bit tired of this supposedly fun game, and pressed the Confirm Appearance prompt suspended in mid-air. Then, between one blink and the next, the words _Welcome to Sword Art Online!_ appeared before her eyes in bold, black letters. Again, reality seemed to distort, as a blue vortex swallowed her. Her senses faded to nothing once more, as the world disappeared in a flash of white light. Then she was abruptly elsewhere.

Slowly, her senses began to return. Her limbs felt just slightly off, and were tingling as if they had fallen asleep. It was dark, but she could hear beeps and a rising clamour of excited voices. No. It wasn't dark; her eyes were closed.

Ignoring her sense of disorientation, Rin forced her eyes open. Her surroundings were bright and blurry. She could make out white cobblestones, a wall some distance ahead of her, and other people – many other people. Hoping to banish her sense of disorientation, Rin tried to push some od through her magic circuits and felt nothing at all. No od, no prana: there was not even the pain that always came with activating her magic circuits. Nothing at all. What?

Magic circuits were a part of a magus' soul. The pseudonerves in her body were mere reflections of the true circuits which dwelt within a nigh untouchable astral plane. To directly manipulate the soul: that was part of the Heaven's Feel. Suddenly, her mind was nearly as disoriented as her body.

She had read the theory, of course. Kayaba Akihito had posited that human consciousness – what a magus might call the soul, or at least its physical reflection – could be directly read as data from the microtubules of a human's nerves by a computer. With a sufficiently detailed scan, full reproduction of human consciousness might be possible. A year ago, that would have been what a magus would call true magic. But she hadn't actually believed it, or at least believed the Nerve Gear was capable of such a scan. In fact, it shouldn't have been capable of anything like that. It was only supposed to redirect inputs and outputs from the brain.

Her eyes narrowing in thought, Rin began considering the problem before her more carefully. In truth, there was no evidence that her magic circuits were not operational. It was, in fact, at least as plausible that she was simply unable to feel their operation due to the Nerve Gear overriding her senses. She would need to devise an experiment to test that hypothesis, but it would probably require a watcher on the outside of this game. Perhaps, a familiar would work.

Professor Velvet had only instructed her to spend the next few days getting acquainted with virtual reality, and to make some basic observations. They would begin the experiments he was really interested in next weekend. However, surely he would understand that-

"Um. Hello."

There was a tanned hand waving in front of her face.

While she had been lost in thought, Rin's vision had cleared. Thus, she had no trouble at all making out the woman waving a hand in front of her face, wearing a mildly concerned expression.

Half a head taller than Rin, blond-haired and busty, the woman looked like some sort of amazon queen right out of a legend. Rather, she would have looked like an amazon queen if she carried herself with a bit more self-confidence.

"Are you okay? You're not lagging, are you?"

"Um, what?" Rin replied, jerking back a bit in response to the woman's sudden appearance. "I-What?"

"Oh. You're alright then. That's good. I got a bit worried when I noticed that you'd been standing still, staring straight ahead with that scary expression, for nearly five minutes."

A sheepish expression crossed the older woman's face.

"I hope I didn't disturb you."

She actually had disturbed Rin, but, at the same time, had she really just spent five minutes staring at nothing like some kind of space case? She didn't even want to think about what her father would have had to say about that if he'd seen her.

_Rin, you should always strive to act in a reserved and elegant manner. That is the way of the Tohsaka family._

Argh! Hadn't she just decided that she didn't want to think about it. Nonetheless, it was certainly the truth. In public, a Tohsaka should be seen as reserved and elegant: not as an airhead who idly stands around staring at nothing. Wait. She was doing it again, wasn't she?

Taking a calming breath through her nose, Rin turned her most charming smile on the woman who had accosted her.

"Oh, I'm very sorry for causing you concern, Miss. I was simply a bit disoriented by all this," Rin affirmed, gesturing towards the vista before her eyes. "I've never really seen anything like it before."

That, at least, was true. In fact, the more time Rin spent observing her surroundings, the more amazed she found herself with this Nerve Gear technology. It was one thing to read about it, but entirely another to experience the world of Sword Art Online first hand.

The courtyard where she had appeared was filled with hundreds of people, and seemed to be only a small part of a far larger city. Even from the little she could see, in scale, at least, it was closer to a reality marble – an entire world reforged according to a magus' inner world – than any illusion spell she had ever encountered.

Of course, in other respects, it fell short of that lofty height of magecraft. In particular, while vast, it was still an illusion, rather than an entirely new world cut off from normal reality. Even so, aside from her difficulties with her magic circuits, the verisimilitude really was amazing. There were a few other problems: a lack of detail in some places, particularly when she didn't focus on them, gravity that didn't quite push down on all the parts of her body the way she remembered, and some aches and pains she had grown used to over the years were missing. However, when she didn't concentrate on her surroundings, she could almost believe that she was in the real world.

"It really is something," the blonde facing her replied. "I really just bought this game in order to take a bit of a break from university. It's been in the news, of course, and all the reviewers said it was spectacular, but, even so, I wasn't expecting anything like this."

A gentle breeze floating through the courtyard ruffled the hair of both young women, carrying the scent of freshly baked bread.

"Anyway, it was nice meeting you," the blonde declared, offering a polite bow. "I'm Sasha."

"I'm pleased to meet you as well, Sasha," Rin replied, not sure what to make of the woman's lack of a family name. "My name is Tohsaka Rin."

The blonde frowned.

"Is that your name IRL?"

This time it was Rin's name to frown? IRL? Was that some kind of acronym?

Seeming to catch the confusion on Rin's face, the woman quickly clarified.

"I mean in real life. Is that your name in real life?"

Rin nodded, but found herself feeling uncertain. Wasn't using your own name natural?

"Yes. Is that a problem, Sasha?"

"Um, not exactly," she replied, while her tone implied the exact opposite. "It's just that, usually, players don't use their full names in MMORPGs. Most players try to separate their real and virtual lives, so, it's a bit odd." Again, her tone implied that it was more than a bit odd.

Rin did not exactly plan on socializing very much in this game, but she would also prefer it if her name did not make her stick out like a sore thumb every time she uttered it. Perhaps, in the future, she could just introduce herself as Rin.

"Tohsaka, I hope I don't offend you by asking this, but is this your first MMORPG?"

Rin thought she might have actually heard that acronym before (maybe on the promotional materials Professor Velvet had sent her?) but, while she did not want to seem ignorant, she had absolutely no idea what it meant. Oh, well. She could always bluff.

"Ah, yes," she replied, feigning a touch of shyness. "It's a bit embarrassing, so..."

"Oh, no," the older woman hastily replied. "You shouldn't feel embarrassed. After all, everyone's a newb at some point."

_Nube?_ That didn't exactly sound very complimentary. Her right eyebrow started to twitch before Rin forced it to still. Sasha seemed nice enough, so it probably wasn't anything too terrible.

"Of course," Sasha continued, "except for the beta testers, I guess we're all sort of newbs. SAO is the first VRMMORPG after all."

Once more, Rin had the uncomfortable feeling that the person with whom she was conversing was speaking an entirely different language.

"So, would you like to party up?" the friendly woman asked Rin. "I'm not an expert, but I don't mind helping you get started, if you're not too busy."

Two impulses warred within Rin. On the one hand, outright rejecting an earnest offer of help would be rude, particularly when it was possible that she could learn a couple of useful things from Sasha. Professor Velvet had asked her to familiarize herself with the game, after all. On the other hand, she found the idea of accepting charity a bit grating. This was just a game, after all. Surely, it couldn't be too difficult.

"Oh, that's not necessary, Sasha," she replied in a friendly tone. "I really appreciate the offer, but I think I'd prefer to figure this game out for myself."

"Oh," Sasha replied, looking a bit discouraged. "I see. Well, at least add me to your friends list. There usually aren't that many women playing MMOs, so it might be nice to party up a bit later."

Wasn't that a bit quick? The two of them had only exchanged a handful of sentences. Rin would hardly be inclined to call them friends; really, they were barely even acquaintances. Even so, refusing this offer as well would be far too rude, and it was just some list. There was only one problem.

"I'd be happy to, Sasha," she replied, smiling brightly. "I'm... just not quite sure how-"

"Oh, I can show you," the older woman interrupted her. "Well, probably, anyway. I'm sure it won't be too hard to find in the menu."

Then the blonde pressed her right index and middle fingers together, raised them up into the air, and then pulled them downwards, as if she was unzipping a jacket. Five, light blue circles appeared in the air, forming a vertical line along the path her fingers had just traced.

After a moment's thought, Sasha pressed the second circle from the top, replacing the five circles which had hung in the air between her and Rin with three white rectangles, which contained the words _Party, Friends _and _Guild_, respectively. The blonde clicked on _Friends_, but then she frowned, as she looked at what appeared next.

"No," she mumbled to herself. "This is just the friends list. Maybe it's under communications."

Faster than Rin could really follow, Sasha then proceeded to retrace her steps back to the main menu, before pressing the third circle from the top, and then one of the white boxes which popped up after the circles had vanished again.

What was she doing? Some sort of fake magic created for the game? If that was the case, then...

Rin raised her own right hand and aped Sasha's motion, summoning a series of circles of her very own. Each circle had a picture drawn on it in black: from top to bottom, a head, two heads, two chat boxes, like you might see in a manga, a balloon and a gear. Were the pictures supposed to mean something?

Rin's musings were interrupted by the appearance of a larger, white rectangle right in front of her face, accompanied by the same _ping_ sound she had been frequently hearing since she materialized inside the world of Sword Art Online.

_Befriend_

_Sasha wants to add you to her friends list._

_Yes No_

"Eh?" Rin spoke, feeling a bit startled by the pop-up's sudden appearance, before regaining her composure and selecting _Yes_.

"Okay," Sasha responded, offering her a smile. "Well, if you ever want to party up, just send me a PM, or even if you just need a bit of help."

Rin managed to keep her smile from betraying any confusion, as Sasha walked away from her. What the heck was a PM? Oh, well. It probably wasn't that important.

The plaza where she had arrived was filled with people, all wearing essentially the same outfit. Well, in truth, the outfits were coloured differently – Rin wore a long-sleeved, red shirt, beneath a tawny chest plate, and a black skirt, while Sasha's shirt and skirt had both been blue, but, otherwise, except for the fact that the men wore long pants, rather than skirts, they were all dressed identically.

The plaza itself was a bit more remarkable: a vast, cobblestone courtyard encircled by marble columns. Beyond the courtyard, a giant, black-domed palace loomed over top of the columns on one side of the courtyard, its ebony spires rising high into the sky. Meanwhile, in the other direction, a wide road stretched out far into distance towards tall stone walls, which she could scarcely make out from so far away. More of the steadily appearing players than not seemed to be leaving the courtyard by that road, so, not having any other particular plans, Rin followed the crowd.

Unfortunately, it turned out that trying to follow the crowd leaving the plaza could only take Rin so far. Almost immediately, once they had left the starting plaza, the crowd began to disperse, less than a fifth of them continuing along the large road leading towards the city gate, while the rest scampered down a dozen different side streets and alleys.

A beautiful park lay a few hundred metres ahead, along the road, lush green trees and a sandy beach surrounding a clear blue lagoon. Houses – some empty – while others were clearly occupied, lined the street, and, when she glanced down a side street to her right, Rin caught sight of a hefty man standing behind a stall, yelling something about the finest iron in all of Aincrad.

Everywhere she looked, people like her were moving purposefully in one direction or the other. Even the few groups who were just loitering around the plaza's entrance were clearly acquainting themselves with one another, or reacquainting themselves with people they already knew. Of course, she wasn't the only one who looked a bit lost in all the commotion. A brown-haired girl, who looked about her age, seemed to be having trouble finding the side street she was looking for, as she peered down one street after another. A tall, muscular guy with an afro was just staring blankly at the city surrounding them, as if he couldn't believe that it was actually real. Rin wasn't the only one, but she definitely felt like she was in the minority.

Just what was a person supposed to do in Sword Art Online?

Well, the name of the game was _Sword_ Art Online, so maybe, to start with, she should get a sword. Of course, money might be an issue, as, when she had checked her pockets, she had not found any currency, but maybe there was somewhere to pick up a sword for free.

Hm. A little further down the city's main street, she could see a number of people gathering in front of a wooden sign displaying two crossed swords. Beneath the sign, an older man seemed to have set up some sort of stall where he was giving people swords. Rin couldn't see any money changing hands, so maybe that was what she was looking for. The line-up to reach the stall was long, but, if every player in the game needed to pick up a sword, then that was no surprise.

Getting into line behind a massive, bald, black man, Rin tried to get the man's attention.

"Um, excuse me," she began, waiting for the man to acknowledge that he had heard her. "Excuse me," she repeated a bit more insistently.

"Oh," the man finally replied, turning to face her. "Yeah. What is it?"

Staring up into the man's chocolate brown eyes, it was hard to ignore the fact that he was more than a head taller than her, and looked as if he might be twice Rin's weight. She wasn't exactly afraid of him, as the magus suspected that she could still put him flat on his back, or crush his bones, with the Chinese martial arts she had been learning for as long as she could remember. However, at the same time, size was a bit more intimidating when she lacked the ability to reinforce her body to a level which would make an Olympic athlete green with envy.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but would you mind telling me if this is the line to get a sword."

The man smirked a bit.

"What? You couldn't tell from the sign?"

He jerked his thumb towards the sign behind his back.

"No. It's just that I don't have any money, so-"

"Huh?"

His voice had lost its teasing tone.

"You managed to lose all your money already? It hasn't even been an hour since the game started!"

"Lose? No. I didn't lose anything. I just didn't start with any money!"

Rin was beginning to get a bit agitated, while the man she was facing was wearing a sceptical expression.

"Really? Is it a bug? Let me see your inventory."

"Inventory? What?"

The man seemed confused with her reply for a second before his eyes widened in sudden comprehension.

"Ah, I get it," he said, nodding to himself. "So, why do you think you don't have any money?"

"What?" Rin asked. "Isn't it obvious? I checked my pockets, and-"

The man held up a hand to stop her there.

"Right. I think you've misunderstood something. This game might be a VRMMO, but they still seem to have kept some things the same as in a regular MMORPG. So, if you just open up your inventory..."

The man trailed off, as he swept his fingers downwards, summoning the five circles, which everyone in this illusion seemed able to call forth. Then he touched the top circle.

"See. In order to see how much money you have, you need to look at your items. I've got 1000 col, which is the same amount everyone starts with. Now, you try."

The man suddenly to notice that the line had moved on quite a ways, while he had been correcting Rin's misconception.

"Ah, crap. Just a sec."

Jogging a dozen steps forward, the black man caught up with the line, and then turned back to Rin, who had followed him.

"Okay. Now, try it."

There was nothing complicated about the procedure, so, with a little thought, Rin copied the man's motions, summoning an item screen of her own. She nodded, as she confirmed that she had the correct amount of money as well. She was getting tired of being lectured and corrected all the time, but she had to admit that both this man and Sasha had helped her out a fair bit.

"Good," the man replied with a grin. "I don't know what sort of gear 1000 col will buy, but hopefully it won't suck too much. By the way, I'm Agil."

"Rin," she answered his name with her own, nodding to the older man. "Thank you for your help."

The man waved her thanks off.

"No problem. It's not like I had much else to do while we were standing in this line. Speaking of which," Agil continued, "it looks like we're finally at the front."

Then, turning towards the merchant they had been waiting for, Agil spent a few seconds looking through a list of, she suspected, weapons, before buying a large axe and a pair of armoured boots. Offering her a thumbs up, as she approached the merchant after him, the black man walked towards a group of armed men, who looked as if they had been waiting for him.

"Welcome to Baldwin's Blades and Armour Shop," the old, balding man said from behind his wooden stall. "And what'll you be needing today, lass?"

Rin's eyes narrowed. She wasn't completely sure, but...

"So, have you ever been to Tokyo?" she asked cheerfully.

The man simply blinked, standing in place silently for a long moment.

"Welcome to Baldwin's Blades and Armour Shop," he repeated. "And what'll you be needing today, lass?"

Rin nodded. From the way he was dressed, the fact that he already had a shop (when the game had started less than an hour ago) and the slightly mechanical way he had spoken, she had guessed that the shop keeper was just part of the illusion, rather than a real person. His range of responses seemed pretty limited, but, even so, provided he didn't talk, the illusion was actually pretty convincing.

"Oy! Hurry up," someone called out from behind her. "We don't have all day!"

Frowning, Rin resisted the urge to turn and shout at the jerk who had interrupted her thoughts. After all, while he had been fairly rude, she could understand his impatience.

"I'd like to buy a sword," she answered, hoping that would prompt the merchant to give her some options.

"Then you're in luck. Drexel may be better for shields, and Craster may make this town's best armour, but, if you're lookin' for a blade, no one has a better selection than old Baldwin."

Of course, as Rin beheld the list of dozens of swords which appeared before her eyes, their prices beside them, she wasn't quite sure if she would call that lucky. Ranging from 50 col to almost 10,000 col, the length of his list of blades was staggering, and, as she couldn't see anything but their prices and names, she had no idea how to compare the merchandise on offer. Considering the fact that he was a salesman and an illusion, on top of that, it seemed unlikely that the stall's owner would be of much help either. So, she decided to go with her instincts.

"I'll take the cheapest one," she exclaimed boldly, pointing to the short sword she had selected.

A few minutes later, her new purchase in hand, Rin once again found herself at loose ends. She had a sword now, but that didn't help her figure out how to stave off boredom. She had overheard a number of people talking about going outside the city to grind mobs, which sounded pretty weird to Rin, but at least watching them would give her something to do.

Walking through the city gate, Rin sighed. Professor Velvet had suggested that she spend at least four hours familiarizing herself with Sword Art Online before they began working, and she had been hoping to get that all done this afternoon, but she was already getting bored after little more than an hour had passed.

Rin also didn't see any mobs outside the city, except for the odd group of players slaughtering defenceless animals. Even Agil and his companions, who she could faintly make out in the distance, seemed to be hunting the boars, who were peacefully grazing in the grassy fields surrounding the Town of Beginnings. So, the point of this game was what? Animal abuse?

She even tried hunting one of the boars herself, hoping that it might be more fun than it looked. It wasn't. The boar was slower than her illusionary body, and it attacked by charging towards her in a straight line. After nearly a decade of sparring with Kirei – one of the Church's most deadly executors – the animal would have only been a bit less likely to hit her if it stood still and hoped that she tripped over it.

The only challenge was actually killing the beast, as it proved remarkably durable. It probably wasn't helping that she swung her sword like a baseball bat, and struck the boar with the blunt end of her sword as many times as the sharp end, but it was still ridiculous that she had to hit the animal in the head with her sword thirteen times before it finally died, bursting into sparkling blue light.

The fight had also lowered Rin's respect for this illusion's verisimilitude. Rather than being cut open by her sword and bleeding out, all that happened to the boar each time her short sword struck was that her blade traced a bright orange line across its head. Instead of actually simulating injury properly, all this game seemed able to do was decrement an initially green, then yellow, and finally, red bar, which floated above the boar's head.

Rin was aware that she herself had one of those bars. It floated around the top left corner of her vision, no matter how she moved her head, above what she guessed was its numerical representation.

_250/250 Lvl 1 _

Thus, it wasn't surprising when, upon trying to cut her own hand with her sword, rather than bleeding or experiencing any pain, she briefly acquired a thin, orange line of her very own.

_248/250 Lvl 1 _

Oh, right. Killing the boar had also netted her a reward.

_Exp 24_

_Col 30_

_Items 2_

She supposed this was why so many people were hunting the beasts, but it still seemed like a waste of time to Rin. Why spend an afternoon beating up fake pigs with fake swords, when you could go learn in actual dojo, or go on a vacation and hunt wild animals for real?

Oh, well. At least the scenery was pleasant. Or, at least it was pleasant until she noticed her audience.

Two young men, both of whom looked five or ten years older than her, had apparently been watching her fight with the boar from a little ways away. In another situation, she might have thought them handsome, the taller red-haired man looking a bit like a noble samurai from a historical drama, while the shorter, black-haired figure could have passed for a model. However, considering the fact that they seemed to be a pair of young twenty-somethings who had been intensely staring at a girl who wasn't even quite out of middle school, Rin's first thought about the pair was rather less complementary.

_Are they... lolicons?_

Then the red-haired man enthusiastically exclaimed, "That was awesome!" and she had to rethink a couple of her assumptions.

"Huh?" she faintly responded, as the refugee from a Sengoku period drama hastily walked towards her.

"I mean, I'd heard that this game had a lot of awesome skills, but what the heck was that? The ninja skill? I mean, that spin kick, and then jumping out of the way, and then you parried it with your bare hands, and..."

"Huh?"

The black-haired guy with the movie star looks walked towards her more casually, but his eyes betrayed a similar interest.

Suddenly a bit embarrassed at the attention, Rin blushed. She wasn't the kind of excessively modest person who wouldn't admit that she had a fair bit of skill at martial arts, but wasn't he praising her a bit too much? And, uh, he was kind of good-looking, if you went for that sort of noble, feudal warrior look.

"Ah, it's, um, just a bit of kenpo. Not anything special, really," she replied, waving the pair off.

"Kenpo?" the black-haired man enquired with an intense look on his face. "I'd heard rumours that there was a martial arts extra skill in the beta, but I had no idea it was hidden this early in the game."

He nodded to himself.

"And I guess that would explain why you were wasting so much time with that mob, as well, if you were grinding your skill."

Rin's right eyebrow twitched. Wasting her time? And what was he doing loitering around out here? It's not like there was anything in this field besides these stupid pigs. Half his words sounded like nonsense, and the other half seemed like an insult.

The man's eyes lost focus and his brow furrowed, as he continued muttering to himself.

"It would have to be in the Starting City and short, so it's probably provided by one of the NPCs, but it wasn't well known in the beta, so it must be obscure. Maybe a hidden puzzle? A simple fetch quest which only triggers if a complex series of flags are raised?"

Rin ran out of patience.

"What are you talking about?"

The dark-haired man started at the interjection, before shaking his head and then refocusing his gaze on her.

"Sorry. I was just trying to figure out where you got a skill like that. Don't worry. I won't pressure you. I want to figure it out for myself. This sort of thing is-"

"I practise for 2 hours every day."

"What?"

Rin held up 2 fingers in front of the man's face, and spoke haltingly, as if she was talking to a small child.

"2 hours. That's how long I practise every day."

"Practise? What? I don't-"

Then his eyes widened.

"You mean... you practise kenpo in real life. That was your real life skill?"

What did he think it was? Her fake life skill?

The man seemed to hesitate for a moment before slowly drawing a sword and awkwardly settling into a kendo stance. His eyes narrowed in thought.

"Huh. I guess that sort of fighting might work as well."

Then he shook his head and put his sword away.

"But something like that will always be inferior to a sword skill, so there's not much point."

Rin's expression sharpened into a furious, piercing glare at the casual dismissal of her abilities. To his credit, the man immediately noticed her expression, and began doing damage control.

"Ah. I mean, in Sword Art Online. In real life, I'm sure it's a great skill." He nodded fervently. "Really great. Um. Ehem. It's just that, in this world, there are sword skills."

He took out his sword again, and turned towards his red-haired companion.

"Klein, do you mind if I demonstrate here? I'll explain, so following along shouldn't be too hard."

"What?" Rin cut in. "Demonstrate-"

"No problem, Kirito. I mean, you're the one doing me a favour, so complaining at adding another beginner would be kind of..."

He trailed off, but the implication was clear.

Kirito nodded.

"Alright," he began, a faint smile ghosting across his lips. "I'll demonstrate on that frenzy boar."

Kirito gestured towards a boar that was peacefully grazing five or ten metres away.

"This is the rage spike skill," he began, as his eyes sharpened, focusing. "It's a skill which only does weak damage, but provides nearly instantaneous movement over short distances. To perform it, I need to first equip the skill." The man's index and middle fingers swept downwards, summoning the five circles, and then selecting the top circle, the bottom white rectangle on the next selection, and something from the middle of a very long series of selections after that. "Then I need to keep my body low," he bent his knees and leaned forward, "and keep my sword parallel to my right leg, while pointing it towards an enemy."

Then he demonstrated, beginning a sprint towards the boar, which, two steps into the run, transformed itself into a blur, his sword glowing blue as it pierced through the boar he had targeted. The animal was thrown back, squealing, as its health dropped into the yellow zone, while, for a single second, Kirito seemed frozen in place. However, before the beast could recover, he was suddenly in motion again, taking two steps forward to meet the boar, before his sword, glowing red this time, cut a vertical line through the beast, reducing its health to 0. It had barely exploded into blue light when Kirito banished the white rectangle listing his rewards and turned back towards them.

The tension leaching out of his body, Kirito casually continued his lecture.

"The second skill was vertical. It's just a single sword swing, but it's much faster and deals much more damage than a swing without using the skill. The key is the pre-motion. Once the system recognizes that you're making the correct initial motion, your weapon will begin to glow. Then, provided your weapon's targeted correctly, all you need to do is let the system take over, and it will automatically complete the sword skill with a speed and strength which would normally be impossible."

Rin was frowning thoughtfully, her interest in Kirito's display having overcome her brief anger.

"So, when you equip a skill, and then make this_ pre-motion_," Rin began, placing the word in finger quotes, "you're essentially applying to the system of this game, which indicates that it has accepted your application by causing your sword to glow. Then the system will take over for you, creating a miracle called a sword skill."

Kirito's face twisted into a rather puzzled expression of his own.

"That's kind of an odd way to put it, but, yeah. That's about right."

Rin simply nodded, walking towards a nearby tree, while Klein and Kirito looked on.

Equipping rage spike was the work of a few minutes, and, annoyingly, she needed Kirito's help twice in order to properly manipulate her summoned circles (which he called her menu). Then, leaning down with her knees bent and sword pointed at the tree, Rin tried to copy the pre-motion she had just watched Kirito perform, but her blade insistently refused to glow. After a few moments of waiting she realized what she was missing, and carefully angled her sword so that it was parallel to her right leg.

Blue flames seemed to lick at her short sword, as she took off at a run. Then something alien tried to flow into her mind, and Rin instinctively slammed the door into her mind closed, sealing it with every trick she knew, which didn't require any prana. Her legs kept moving, and her sword kept glowing, but, even as she stabbed her sword into the tree in front of her, seemingly to no effect, Rin knew that she had failed to perform the skill.

"Eh? What happened?" Klein asked, seeming more than a bit confused. "I thought you had it."

Kirito just shook his head with a smile.

"You resisted the system assist, didn't you. A lot of players have that problem at the start, as it feels unnatural letting the Cardinal system control your movements, but you'll need to get over it if you want to perform sword skills. Klein, why don't you try?"

"Eh? Uh, okay. Just let me find a good mob, and, uh, there we go."

As the red-haired swordsman began settling into a stance of his own, Rin walked back over to Kirito, putting her own sword away.

"You're really comfortable with something like that?" she asked, a bit uncertain. "Letting this system freely access your mind?"

Kirito shrugged.

"I was a bit wary at the beginning, but it's not that different from putting on the Nerve Gear in the first place. Even more than that, I don't think the government would allow Argus to produce a system which could harm a person's brain, and even if it did, Argus would face lawsuits that would bankrupt it ten times over if it caused any damage."

"So," he finished with a half-grin, "I guess I decided to trust them, and it hasn't caused me any problems so far."

Rin found it difficult to be so blase about the sanctity of her own mind, but, seeing no point in arguing with Kirito, she decided to ask about something else instead.

"When you say it hasn't caused you any problems, so far, how long are you talking about? Didn't the game only begin a couple of hours ago?"

"Oh. Well, I was lucky enough to get selected for the beta test, so I've already been playing for 2 months."

Rin nodded.

"I see."

She had no idea what someone would do in this place for 2 months (she was struggling to occupy herself for a few hours) but that would explain why Kirito seemed so experienced, even if she wasn't quite sure what a beta test actually involved.

Wincing, as she watched Klein collapse to the ground, the boar he had been attacking having bashed its head into his crotch, Rin turned her thoughts towards the game's sword skills. They weren't thaumaturgy. The application process was a physical motion, rather than an aria, there was no prana, and the actualization had a mental component which mildly disturbed her. However, it was similar enough in form that it was easy for her to understand the basic principles of the system.

Her main problem was the details. The menu spell, or whatever it was... even it could be activated with a single action, there was hidden complexity there. It wasn't like actualizing a single miracle, but more like a list of miracles, from which one could select a miracle at leisure. Understanding it was exactly the sort of thing Professor Velvet had probably wanted her to do, when he told her to familiarize herself with the game, and Kirito was a person who had been utilizing his own menu for months. It stung her pride, but...

"Kirito," she called out to the dark-haired man, interrupting him, as he teased Klein about the redhead's excessive reaction to the painless strike he had received from the boar he had been fighting.

"Hm?" Kirito replied, casually cocking his head in her direction.

It wasn't like she needed his help. This was just the most efficient way to use her time. After all, she wasn't in this game for fun. The faster she collected the information she needed, the faster she could get back to the real world, where important responsibilities awaited her.

"Would-Would you mind helping me learn how to use the menu? I mean, I could definitely do it on my own, but-"

"Sure," he interrupted her with a smile. "No problem. Just let me finish helping Klein first."

Annoyed to realize that her illusionary face could actually blush, Rin took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Getting him to help her had been less trying than she'd anticipated. Kirito and Klein: they were both kind people, weren't they?

000

A few hours later, as the sky turned red and the sun set, Rin, Kirito and Klein overlooked the first floor of Aincrad from atop a lookout, watching as a tremendous waterfall spilled into a vast, clear lake, forming a rainbow. Of the three, one was content, a second was awed by the world around him, and the last of the trio was sulking.

"Ah, Rin. I'll cry if you keep making a face like that. Seriously, it was just a sword. Enjoy the view."

However, Rin refused to be cheered up, her expression darkening at Klein's words.

Kirito shrugged his shoulders, a teasing expression on his face.

"Well, when a person buys the cheapest sword in Aincrad, and then refuses to use sword skills for hours, meaning that she takes nearly ten times as many strikes to kill a mob as a normal player, then it shouldn't be too surprising when her sword shatters into polygons in the middle of a fight."

Rin's eyes were like daggers, stabbing into Kirito without mercy, but Kirito was the kind of person who would happily take that kind of minor damage in return for the opportunity to score the last attack.

"Of course," he continued, stroking his chin, "it is a bit more surprising when she loses her balance and gets knocked into a pond a second later, and I guess even I'd forgotten that was the pond where you were supposed to go to fetch all those leeches for that lady in Horunka.."

Sopping wet, and still not sure that she'd managed to pull off every one of the dozens of illusionary leeches which had attached themselves to pretty well every part of her body, Tohsaka Rin took a deep, calming breath and smiled.

"Ah, Kirito," she piped up in a suspiciously cheerful tone of voice. "I think you're forgetting something. Who was it again who kept bothering me to use sword skills when I had been fine all day? And what happened the first time I used one, again?"

"Hey, Rin, you can't blame Kirito for that. Even if sword skills decrease your durability twice as fast, it's not like-"

Rin's head slowly turned towards Klein, allowing him to catch sight of the terrifying, closed-eyed smile on her face.

"Oh. Did you say something, Klein?"

Eyes wide, Klein hastily shook his head.

"Uh, no mam."

"That's what I thought."

By this time Kirito had also noticed Rin's expression. It was completely different from her previous glares, like the difference between a solid horizontal cutting you in two and an unblockable 12 hit combo, which did poison damage and caused a paralysing debuff with every strike.

"I-uh-I mean-Rin..."

Satisfied that the person teasing her had learned his lesson, Rin cheerfully continued to watch Kirito squirm for a few more moments before letting him off the hook, relaxing her expression with a loud exhale. Then she stood up and tried to squeeze a bit more water out of her skirt. According to Kirito, as soon as she changed her clothes, the water would automatically disappear, but there was no way in Hell she was doing that in front of two grown men.

Oh, well. It was already past 5PM, so she could leave now and be done with her job until Wednesday. She actually thought that she might miss Kirito and Klein a bit while she was gone – somehow, the pair had managed to grow on her – but she couldn't allow that sort of attachment to interfere with her training as a magus. At the end of the day, she was only in this game in order to get her scholarship to the Clock Tower. Even so, she couldn't resist the opportunity to get Kirito back for his teasing before she left.

"So, as it was all your fault, Kirito, I'll be expecting you to pay me back, and don't think I'll accept something like a replacement sword. Even offering yourself as my personal slave might not be enough to make up for the indelible trauma your actions have inflicted upon an innocent, young girl."

"Sl-Slave?" Kirito replied, gawping at her.

She nodded.

"Oho! So, you're into that sort of thing then, Rin? Heheh. It sounds like-"

"Klein," Rin cut in ruthlessly. "Were you about to say something to an underage girl, which could get you arrested?"

"I... Uh...Heh..."

"Anyway, Kirito, we can discuss the details later. I need to leave now, and won't be back on for a few days, so it'll have to wait until then."

Rin wasn't actually in the market for a slave, of course, but watching Kirito's reaction had been hilarious. It would be even funnier to watch how he reacted the next time he saw her. Would he run away and hide like a mouse, which had sighted a cat? She couldn't wait.

"Ah. You too, Rin?" Klein responded. "My pizza'll be arriving in 5 minutes, so I guess we'll be leaving you all alone then, Kirito. Well, I'll be back online in a half hour or so, but you know what I mean. Anyway, before we go, I want to add you two to my friends list. Okay?"

"Ah. That thing again," Rin replied. "It's fine with me."

Kirito just nodded.

"Great."

The red-haired samurai wannabe manipulated his menu for a few seconds, and then, an instant later, a message popped up in front of Rin's face.

_Befriend_

_Klein wants to add you to his friends list._

_Yes No_

_Befriend_. She daintily pressed her index finger to the word _Yes_. Two friends – four if you counted Kirito and Agil – in only 4 hours: that was more friends than she had in the real world. It was strange.

Then, unexpectedly, another message appeared.

_Befriend_

_Kirito wants to add you to his friends list._

_Yes No_

Her gaze turned towards the black-haired man, who was smiling at her encouragingly.

"I'm online a lot, so, if you ever want to go hunting again, just send me a message."

"I..." she began uncertainly, before trailing off, not sure what she wanted to say. Then she pressed _Yes_. That was answer enough, wasn't it?

In nearly three years of attending her middle school, Rin had only shown a handful of people as much of herself as Kirito and Klein had seen this afternoon. She was a class representative, and known throughout the school, but even Sasha and Agil, who she had barely known for 10 minutes, had probably seen more of her true personality than most of the students in her class. Was it that this was a false world, where anyone might wear a false face? Was that why she felt free to reveal a bit more of herself? Or was it that she would never need to see these people again, if she so chose? She couldn't say.

Of course, none of them (in either world) had ever seen the real Tohsaka Rin: the ruthless and pragmatic magus who would sacrifice anything – even her own life – in order to be a worthy successor to the Tohsaka family. But, still...

"Huh? There's no log out button."

What?

"Look closer," Kirito replied to Klein.

"No. It's not there."

000

That was when it all truly began. First, there were 30 minutes of waiting for some sort of fix (Kirito said something about bugs, but Rin didn't really get it) while Kirito explained just how hard it would be to take the Nerve Gear off of one's own accord, the sky darkening all the while. Then they were all forcibly teleported into the plaza where they had all started the game earlier that afternoon, along with what seemed like every other person in the illusory world of Aincrad. Finally, the sky began to bleed, and a towering, ominously cloaked figure appeared, floating far above their heads.

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko, and, as of this moment, I am the sole person in control of this world. I'm sure you've already noticed that the log out button is missing from the main menu."

Well, yes. Good of you to finally notice.

"This is not a defect in the game. I repeat: it is not a defect. It is a feature of Sword Art Online."

What? So, how exactly were they supposed to log out? It wasn't like he could just trap everyone in the game forever.

"You cannot log out of Sword Art Online yourselves, and no one on the outside can shut off or remove your Nerve Gear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the Nerve Gear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain, and, thus, ending your life."

The crowd was beginning to get unruly, not seeming terribly inclined to entertain Kayaba's posturing. Rin had similar feelings. There was such a thing as taking a joke too far, and she had other things to do tonight. She didn't have time to entertain this sort of nonsense. After all, wouldn't someone have noticed if the Nerve Gear was capable of doing something like that?

But, apparently, it was possible, or at least that's what Kirito told Klein, when the redhead raised that same objection. Rin had no idea how something like that could ever make it to market, but she had to admit that Kirito seemed to know far more about electronics than she did.

"Unfortunately, several players' friends and families have ignored this warning and attempted to remove the Nerve Gear. As a result, 213 players are gone forever from both Aincrad and the real world."

What?

Rin's blood turned to ice. Either this was one of the worst jokes she had ever heard, or Kayaba Akihiko, in the past few hours, had become one of the most prolific mass murders who had ever lived.

Klein was still denying it, while Kirito looked shell-shocked, but Rin couldn't bring herself to pay either one of them much attention in the face of what Kayaba had just asserted.

Distantly, the Tohsaka heiress continued to register the self-proclaimed mass murderer's words, her expression growing colder all the while. Death in the game meant death in real life. The only way to escape was to overcome all of Aincrad's 100 floors. A mirror appeared in the hands of every player, revealing his or her true face. The madman claimed to have no motive beyond playing God: imprisoning, and if he willed it, murdering, 10,000 people for his own sick amusement.

But, beneath the surface, her mind was churning rapidly. If he was telling the truth, then Kayaba would kill anyone who tried to escape his game. If he was telling the truth, then he would kill anyone who tried to interfere with his game. As Rin stood motionless, coolly considering her next move in the centre of thousands of cries of despair and disbelief, she realized that she was already planning on trying to do both.

_To be a magus is to walk with death._

"Rin."

A voice was calling her name.

"Rin."

A hand was pulling on her own insistently, and her feet seemed to be moving as well without any input from her brain. It didn't matter. She just needed to make sure she had the theory right. That was the first step.

"Rin!"

"Kirito?"

The voice was Kirito's but the face was different. A red-haired man she didn't recognize was there, as well, being pulled along with the two of them. Wait. Kayaba had restored their original appearances. If Kirito and Klein had chosen to enhance their own looks, then...

"Kirito?" she asked the somewhat girlish-looking boy with short, black hair.

"Klein?" she questioned the red-haired man, who looked about the same age as before, but quite a bit scruffier.

Her mouth opened before her brain realized what she was planning on saying.

"You two aren't nearly as good-looking in real life."

Probably-Klein was confirmed as definitely Klein when he cracked a half-hearted grin at her words.

"Ugh, Rin. That-That hurts. And I can't even say anything back, as you've barely changed at all."

Kirito looked a bit offended for a few seconds, but then the brief moment of levity passed, and the events of the past few minutes began to weigh down on them once more. Kirito was the first to break the ensuing silence.

"Listen to me. I'm heading to the next village right now. Come with me."

"Huh?" Klein replied, but Rin's reply was far more definite.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

Kirito's dark eyes were sober and serious when he looked into Rin's own cerulean orbs, but whatever he saw there was enough to make him lose his composure.

"Don't you understand? If what he said is true, then the only way to survive in this world is to make yourself as strong as possible, but the resources in-"

"No," Rin repeated again. "If what he said is true, then the surest way to survive is to stay in this city. But that's only if you trust a lunatic who would murder hundreds of people and effectively kidnap thousands more for, according to him, no real reason at all. The promise to release everyone if the game is cleared is equally suspect."

"So, what are you saying? That it's hopeless."

"No. If you want to live, Kirito, then stay in this city and wait to be rescued. That's the safest course. You should do the same, Klein."

Kirito's hands were clenched into fists, even while his face remained expressionless.

"I can't do that. Just sitting here and waiting for a rescue that may never come... I-I'd rather die."

"I see."

It hurt to look at the walking corpse in front of her – the fool who planned to die for nothing more than his own stubborn need to be doing something – so she turned away.

"And you, Klein?"

The older man flinched at the look in her eyes, but then, with a sigh, he gathered himself and replied.

"It's not that simple for me. I've got friends back in that plaza. We waited in line together to buy this game for hours. I-I need to go back and see them: figure out what to do. I don't like the idea of just rotting away in this town anymore than Kirito, but, even so, I can't just..."

His eyes were troubled, but Rin could tell that he was resolved as well. Unless Klein's friends were truly cowards, then he would be leading them out of this city and into Kayaba's death game as well. He would probably die too.

Refusing to allow Kirito and Klein to see anything but cool resolution on her face, Rin turned away from the pair, and began to walk towards an inn she had seen when she first arrived in this illusionary world.

"Rin, where are you-" Klein began to ask before Rin cut him off.

"I have a few things to check up on," she replied. "In the meantime, try to stay alive."

Then, without sparing either of the young men another look, Rin walked away.

A handful of minutes later, her features looked as if they had been carved from granite, as she paid 50 col for a private room in the Traveller's Inn, just a few hundred metres from the entrance to the plaza. Sitting atop her rented bed, cross-legged, Rin closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. She quite pointedly did not think of a dark-haired boy, maybe even younger than her, who might die today. She did not think of the red-haired man who might follow him into the grave. She did not think of a tall black man or a friendly amazon. She could not afford any distractions right now.

When she had first entered Aincrad, Rin had almost immediately noticed that she could no longer feel the activity of her magic circuits, the od filling her body, or the circulation of her prana. At the time, preoccupied with familiarizing herself with Sword Art Online, she had put off investigating the matter until later, when she would be able to safely determine whether her Nerve Gear was simply blocking the sensations associated with performing her magecraft, or whether it was actually interfering with her soul, where her magic circuits truly dwelt.

If the Nerve Gear had somehow separated her mind from her soul, then performing magecraft would be impossible, but, the more she considered the matter, the less likely that seemed. Even if Kayaba Akihiko's research might one day allow for soul manipulation approaching the level of the Heaven's Feel, the Nerve Gear had not been designed with such a purpose in mind. All it was designed to do was perfectly deceive the senses.

So, if she was right, then it should still be possible for her to perform magecraft. After all, spell casting was not a method used by a magus to speak to the World, but to oneself. It was a form of self-hypnosis which allowed a magus to transform herself, in order to efficiently activate and mobilize the circuits in her soul. In theory, there was no reason why an aria spoken within the world of Aincrad should not be able to actualize a mystery in the real world. She had no idea how to manipulate the illusionary world of Aincrad itself, but her physical body's surroundings should be within her reach.

This was Tohsaka Rin's goal: to reach outside the world of Kayaba Akihiko.

Of course, performing magecraft without being able to feel the activity of her circuits, her od or her prana was extremely dangerous. Mistakes in magecraft could easily be fatal, and performing faultless magecraft without even being able to see or feel what you were doing would tax even the greatest magus. It would be like a symphony trying to perform while all its members were blind and deaf. Even if each individual part was somehow perfect, there was only a small chance that the whole piece would hang together. But Tohsaka Rin was a genius, and not every mistake in magecraft was fatal.

Performing the sort of delicate magecraft which would be needed to free herself from her Nerve Gear was probably impossible using this kind of kludge: all she would accomplish would be getting her brain fried. But something more limited, requiring less finesse, could, perhaps, be accomplished. First, however, she would need a proof of concept.

Even if she conjured a ball of fire or froze her entire bedroom in the real world, she wouldn't be able to tell what had happened while trapped inside Aincrad. So, it would need to be a spell which transferred her consciousness into the real world. Of course, even for a Tohsaka, a member of a family which excelled in transference and conversion, such spells were difficult and delicate. It would be nearly as hopeless a proposition as removing her Nerve Gear, except for one important fact.

The deeper the connection a magus had to an object, and the more power that magus had placed within the object, the easier it was to transfer one's consciousness to that object. So, a doll the magus had possessed since her childhood was easier than one newly bought from a store, and a mystic code the magus had empowered herself was easier than a rock she had found on a beach.

A jewel which she had bled upon and infused with her prana for almost an entire year was probably the best target Tohsaka Rin could ever wish for.

Her breathing was steady. The door was locked, so that nothing should disturb her concentration. The image of the amethyst which she had infused with her prana since her fifteenth birthday, nine months ago, settled firmly into her mind. It was a gorgeous, octagonal jewel, which she stored in the top drawer of the desk beside her bed.

With more care then ever before, Rin pulled the mental trigger which activated her circuits, concentrating on the familiar image of a knife stabbing through her heart. There should have been pain, as her od, hopefully, began transforming into prana, but there wasn't, so she imagined it. This pain was familiar enough that she could picture it perfectly, faultlessly recreating every detail of the sensation, if only in her mind. Pain was part of the price for the power known as magecraft, and, if she couldn't feel it, then she needed to at least imagine it, if she wanted a mystery built upon such an unsteady foundation to have any hope of being accepted.

She visualized her prana, which she hoped was steadily flowing through her body, wrapping around her optic nerve, and connecting it to the jewel only a few feet away, whose every detail she held firmly within her mind.

Finally, she spoke a one-line aria, hypnotizing herself into not only believing that her mystery could be enacted, but that it would inevitably be enacted.

Rin felt nothing, but when she opened her eyes, the light illuminating her room at the Traveller's Inn was gone. She could sense her limbs and body, but there were no limbs or body for her to move. Vision was the only sense she had, and it was dark.


End file.
